Teams & Riders Froome Talk Only

[Mish_C]

I thought it was pretty obvious that the 2012 Tour didn't quite have the same intensity as the 2013 edition - no Contador, no Quintana, Nibali wasn't at his best.

 

[deeno1975]

I don't believe he was ever a mid pack rider - possibly a super GT contender with bad bike handling skills and poor tactics. First stage race in Europe (Giro delle Regioni) with the UCI school he almost won the first mountain top finish (but followed the race motorbikes off the race route in the last kilometre ), he did win the second mountain top finish though

Again, I suggest you read the book...it's certainly been a long journey and he's anything but an overnight success.

Thanks for the reply. The biggest problem that Chris has is that he is a victim of cyclings dark past, every time a cyclist has a trajectory like Chris has, they have been built on a doping foundation. You must understand and appreciate that.

If he is to be believed then he must be above reproach. He must publish in detail his power and blood details from Pre and post 2011. This, while hard to do, would give Chris serious credibility which unfortunately right now he does not have. I want to remove all doubt before I believe in him because credibility must be earned before respect is given.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Out of curiosity, I recently did an analysis of Chris' performance using publicly available Time Trial results. Between April and June of 2011, there was a sudden and permanent change in performance of 4.7 seconds per kilometer (average).

Can you comment on that? That works out to roughly 20% gain in power output (FTP). Is there anything that changed for Chris during May 2011?

John Swanson

 

[red_flanders]

I don't believe he was ever a mid pack rider - possibly a super GT contender with bad bike handling skills and poor tactics. First stage race in Europe (Giro delle Regioni) with the UCI school he almost won the first mountain top finish (but followed the race motorbikes off the race route in the last kilometre ), he did win the second mountain top finish though

Again, I suggest you read the book...it's certainly been a long journey and he's anything but an overnight success.

His results are not arguable. He was not a GT contender and was going to lose his contract from his team before his transformation at the Vuelta. He turned from anonymity to not just competing with the best GT riders in the world, but trouncing them easily.

This has never happened before, and if you make the argument that it has you have to refer to people like Riis who were well known heavy dopers.

I don't believe getting better at handling a bike (debatable, he still looks very clumsy) and tactics (what is he doing differently?) can make such a difference. Not even close.

Why should any informed fan who has watched the sport for decades, and has seen it all be anything but incredulous at his transformation? We've heard these arguments time and again since the early 90's. Better training, more focus, better tactics, works harder. In the end, there is never any magical forumla, it's always some form of heavy doping that did it.

Now we are to believe that tactics and bike handling (again debatable that there is any notable difference) can turn a guy who was about to get dropped by his team in favor of some other mid-pack riders into a world beater? I remain more than skeptical.

 

[Vino's Mum]

...he's anything but an overnight success.

Hi Michelle, In 2011, Chris' contract with Sky was running down, and I can't think of any race where he looked anything like the rider he is today. He shows up at the Vuelta to ride for Brad, leads the race after the tt, and only loses it on time bonuses as the team realises too late that he can win.

Vuelta 11, TDF 12 and 13, Chris was easily the strongest rider and could have won them all - where has this performance level come from?

 

[the sceptic]

I don't believe he was ever a mid pack rider - possibly a super GT contender with bad bike handling skills and poor tactics. First stage race in Europe (Giro delle Regioni) with the UCI school he almost won the first mountain top finish (but followed the race motorbikes off the race route in the last kilometre ), he did win the second mountain top finish though

Again, I suggest you read the book...it's certainly been a long journey and he's anything but an overnight success.

We dont need this shameless promotion of the book. If it is anywhere close to as funny as the last book, everyone will be delighted to read it.

 

[BYOP88]

Thanks for the reply. The biggest problem that Chris has is that he is a victim of cyclings dark past, every time a cyclist has a trajectory like Chris has, they have been built on a doping foundation. You must understand and appreciate that.

If he is to be believed then he must be above reproach. He must publish in detail his power and blood details from Pre and post 2011. This, while hard to do, would give Chris serious credibility which unfortunately right now he does not have. I want to remove all doubt before I believe in him because credibility must be earned before respect is given.

And if Sky won't release the data pre Vuelta 2011 can't you ask the UCI to release the results of the tests they run when he was with the UCI school.

 

[lllludo]

I don't believe he was ever a mid pack rider - possibly a super GT contender with bad bike handling skills and poor tactics. First stage race in Europe (Giro delle Regioni) with the UCI school he almost won the first mountain top finish (but followed the race motorbikes off the race route in the last kilometre ), he did win the second mountain top finish though

A few more details about Chris's mythology from Giro Delle Reggioni but I might be wrong.
Froomey escaped with the slovenian climber Grega Bole during the 1st mountain stage was leading with 500m to go but followed the motor bikes and Bole won.
Then he got his revenge by outsprinting Zeits and Gautier (recent 7th at Paris-Nice) at Montepulciano, were Tuscans make very nice red wines at the top of the mountain.
I am not sure if this enough to declare him a potential future GT winner though...

 

[Mish_C]

many versions about Froomey and bilharzia but I can't wait to read his autobiography.
It is not clear when he contracted the disease. At the beginning Chris said it was when he visited in Kenya in December 2010 but then other account mentioned 2009. He was diagnosed with bilharzia beginning of 2011 though.
Do you confirm ?

It's impossible to say when exactly it was contracted... he could have picked it up as a child (it can remain dormant for years) or later when he visited Kenya. His guess is around 2009/2010 - from his symptoms he doesn't believe it was longer than that but there is no set rate at which the parasite spreads, and the symptoms can differ greatly depending on where the parasite decides to spread to.
Yes he was first diagnosed after his brother had found out that he was riddled with it and suggested he get a test.

 

[Mish_C]

We dont need this shameless promotion of the book. If it is anywhere close to as funny as the last book, everyone will be delighted to read it.

What last book?!

 

[LaFlorecita]

What last book?!

Walsh' Team Sky book of which I forgot the title.

 

[Mish_C]

Out of curiosity, I recently did an analysis of Chris' performance using publicly available Time Trial results. Between April and June of 2011, there was a sudden and permanent change in performance of 4.7 seconds per kilometer (average).

Can you comment on that? That works out to roughly 20% gain in power output (FTP). Is there anything that changed for Chris during May 2011?

John Swanson

That was around when he would have been treated for bilharzia. From what I understand, one the major symptoms he was suffering from was fatigue so where exactly the time trial fell in the stage race would have been a major factor.

 

[Mish_C]

Anyway.. I'm off. Thanks for the questions.

 

[deeno1975]

What last book?!

I think he means the last David Walsh book...

Where David faced with nearly the exactly the same set of characteristics that existed at US Postal, he saw Sky clean and US Postal dirty. Although, I'm now beginning to believe it was personal with Armstrong and not about cycling.

PS full credit to you for going on this forum.

 

[Mr.38%]

Regarding lab tests a quote by the good Dr. Andy Coggan: "The best predictor of performance is performance itself.".

We are observing performances that are not believable. Why? Because it never ever happened in cycling history. Champs have been champs from juniors. There has not a single case been documented since the 1890ies that is almost as dramatic as the transformation of Christopher Froome.

Michelle, what's so special about your man that let's him stand above everybody in cycling history?

 

[oldcrank]

Anyway.. I'm off. Thanks for the questions.

Lovely of you to drop by, my friend. All the best to you and Chris.
I'm very much looking forward to "The Climb." I know it will be a
great read.

 

[BYOP88]

Anyway.. I'm off. Thanks for the questions.

Thanks for coming.

Hopefully we weren't that evil and scary and when you have some spare time you could drop by again. Have a nice day.

 

[LaFlorecita]

That was around when he would have been treated for bilharzia. From what I understand, one the major symptoms he was suffering from was fatigue so where exactly the time trial fell in the stage race would have been a major factor.

Wouldn't you know it for sure?

 

[BradCantona]

Where David faced with nearly the exactly the same set of characteristics that existed at US Postal, he saw Sky clean and US Postal dirty.

Seriously? How on can you compare the sheer weight of evidence he wrote about US Postal, with the barebones heresay of Sky?

I'll agree it was a poorer piece of work, I'd have liked him to have been more critical in following lines of enquiry up (proof Leinder's didn't work with the tour squad for instance, rather than taking on word), but how on earth can you claim 'nearly exactly the same set of characteristics', that's utter tripe

 

[Benotti69]

Seriously? How on can you compare the sheer weight of evidence he wrote about US Postal, with the barebones heresay of Sky?

Walsh decided Armstrong was doping based on him saying that Bassons had no place in the TdF. It was this one thing that he decided Armstrong was a doper. The rest came over the years

I'll agree it was a poorer piece of work, I'd have liked him to have been more critical in following lines of enquiry up (proof Leinder's didn't work with the tour squad for instance, rather than taking on word), but how on earth can you claim 'nearly exactly the same set of characteristics', that's utter tripe

Walsh has failed to add up all the dots and come to a logical conclusion about Sky.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

That was around when he would have been treated for bilharzia. From what I understand, one the major symptoms he was suffering from was fatigue so where exactly the time trial fell in the stage race would have been a major factor.

Thank you for the response.

However, I don't understand how the Bilharzia could have had this effect. According to the NIH (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3230106/) Chris must have had a chronic infection; especially if it lasted three years (the length of time his performance was suppressed by my analysis).

Chronic Bilharzia manifests as either urinary or intestinal schistosomiasis. Considering that Chris hasn't suffered hepatic fibrosis (liver damage - typically irreversible) and nobody has mentioned renal pathology (kidney problems), he must have had a fairly non-severe (relatively speaking!) infection. Praziquantel was also successful at treating the infection, suggesting a minor pathology.

So what I don't get is that Chris had a chronic infection for at least three years (that's as far as my analysis goes due to lack of data pre 2008), and didn't suffer any of the typical symptoms (liver, kidney problems) other than fatigue, which is actually associated the acute version of the infection and is called Katayama syndrome. If Chris had Katayama syndrome, he would also have likely had a cough, headache, fever, bloody pee, bloody stool or other symptoms.

Anyways, I don't understand how Chris had Bilharzia for three years and only suffered minor fatigue that lowered his FTP by 20%.

John Swanson

 

[Justinr]

Thank you for the response.

However, I don't understand how the Bilharzia could have had this effect. According to the NIH (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3230106/) Chris must have had a chronic infection; especially if it lasted three years (the length of time his performance was suppressed by my analysis).

Chronic Bilharzia manifests as either urinary or intestinal schistosomiasis. Considering that Chris hasn't suffered hepatic fibrosis (liver damage - typically irreversible) and nobody has mentioned renal pathology (kidney problems), he must have had a fairly non-severe (relatively speaking!) infection. Praziquantel was also successful at treating the infection, suggesting a minor pathology.

So what I don't get is that Chris had a chronic infection for at least three years (that's as far as my analysis goes due to lack of data pre 2008), and didn't suffer any of the typical symptoms (liver, kidney problems) other than fatigue, which is actually associated the acute version of the infection and is called Katayama syndrome. If Chris had Katayama syndrome, he would also have likely had a cough, headache, fever, bloody pee, bloody stool or other symptoms.

Anyways, I don't understand how Chris had Bilharzia for three years and only suffered minor fatigue that lowered his FTP by 20%.

John Swanson

You mention a 20% increase in power - can you explain how you got to that? The two ITTs that he did for sure were Romandie and Suisse - the difference in speed between the two for Froome being 4.24 kmh (20.1 km in 29 mins compared with 32.1 km in 42.03 mins) an improvement in speed of approx 10%. In a quick 5 min check i couldnt find any more ITTs.

Also the Romandie was described as an undulating course and the Suisse one had a lump in the middle. Not sure how we would allow for that.

Just interested in how you did the calcs.

Thanks

 

[lllludo]

You mention a 20% increase in power - can you explain how you got to that? The two ITTs that he did for sure were Romandie and Suisse - the difference in speed between the two for Froome being 4.24 kmh (20.1 km in 29 mins compared with 32.1 km in 42.03 mins) an improvement in speed of approx 10%. In a quick 5 min check i couldnt find any more ITTs.

Also the Romandie was described as an undulating course and the Suisse one had a lump in the middle. Not sure how we would allow for that.
Just interested in how you did the calcs.

Thanks

Justinr the 20% figure is not that important as it's not necessary to quantify how much stronger Froomey became after the summer 2011 (how much stronger was Armstrong in 99 compared to 96? 10%? 20%? who cares about the exact figure : he was not the same rider).
Everybody saw Froomey became much stronger mid-2011 and that's enough.

What is important to notice in what ScienceIsCool is that Froomey seemed to have been affected by an uncommon form of bilharzia that apparently lasted during 1 or 2 years but was not a particularly severe one. Nevertheless the bilharzia justifies so-so results in 2009 and 2010.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

You mention a 20% increase in power - can you explain how you got to that? The two ITTs that he did for sure were Romandie and Suisse - the difference in speed between the two for Froome being 4.24 kmh (20.1 km in 29 mins compared with 32.1 km in 42.03 mins) an improvement in speed of approx 10%. In a quick 5 min check i couldnt find any more ITTs.

Also the Romandie was described as an undulating course and the Suisse one had a lump in the middle. Not sure how we would allow for that.

Just interested in how you did the calcs.

Thanks

Thanks for asking. My thinking was that it is near impossible to look only at Froome's speed at different events because terrain, distance, weather, etc vary enough to make an analysis useless.

Instead, what I did is calculate his difference in performance from the winner in seconds per kilometer. I also calculated his relative placing (i.e., if he placed 20th out of 200 riders, he's in the top 10%).

What I found is that 2008 until Romandie 2011, Chris on average placed in the top 27% with no higher than a top 11% placing. He also lost an average of 6.4 seconds per kilometer with a best performance of 3.3 s/km.

From 2011 Tour de Suisse onwards, Chris has only lost 1.7 s/km against his rivals and is placing in the top 5%. Barring one outlier, Chris' worst performance since then had him losing 1.9 s/km and only placed in the top 6%.

So a remarkable improvement of 4.7 s/km literally and permanently overnight. Assuming an average race speed of 50 km/hr and the fact that power increases as approximately speed^3 due to aerodynamics, this equates to a ~20% gain in FTP.

Or to use the vernacular: from donkey to racehorse.

John Swanson

 

[The Hitch]

I don't believe he was ever a mid pack rider - possibly a super GT contender with bad bike handling skills and poor tactics. First stage race in Europe (Giro delle Regioni) with the UCI school he almost won the first mountain top finish (but followed the race motorbikes off the race route in the last kilometre ), he did win the second mountain top finish though

Again, I suggest you read the book...it's certainly been a long journey and he's anything but an overnight success.

I'm sorry but you exhibit a very poor understanding of cycling. A rider does not go from 300th in the world to most dominant rider of their generation by improving their tactics. Tactics can cost a rider seconds, maybe minutes on 1 or 2 stages not half an hour in every stage for 5 years. Whatsmore there is no record of froome doing the kind of 50 attacks a stage that might cause a tdf winner talent to lose so much time every day of their life.

Secondly almost winning a stage at the giro del Regione does not constitute tdf top 50 talent let alone tdf denominator talent. Just look at what froomes contemporaries from 1985 were doing then e.g. Andy schleck. Nibali at the same age was doing much better at much better races. Fast forward to 2012 and a froome you say wasn't even trying is dropping Nibali with ease and not even getting tired.